Reading for Kids

This activity is easy for a child to handle, but it requires adult help while cutting and pasting. It helps to promote bonding between parent and child as well as inculcate a fondness for reading. And it definitely helps the child remember the alphabet. The child can do one alphabet a day.

Reciting nursery rhymes to young children helps improve their language and memory, and develops important rhythmic patterns.

Children love songs with repetitive action – like this one, where you touch the parts of the baby’s body as you name them:Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes,
Two eyes, two ears, a mouth and a nose;

As the baby gets older you can recite ‘One two buckle my shoe’ as you climb the stairs, particularly once your baby starts walking. Also sing rhymes like ‘Baa baa black sheep’ – and when you get to the ‘three bags full’ hold up three fingers, then bend down one finger at a time as you ‘distribute’ the bags.

As you recite the rhymes, you can start talking to the child about the animals or objects being mentioned in the rhymes. For example, talk about the wool together, how it is shorn off the sheep and what happens next. Find a woollen garment for your child to feel.